Fallen
by HappierThanMost
Summary: Because war always comes back.


**FALLEN**

_But he'd been good for so long..._

In the fall of a Vicodin season, the sidewinder nights set in sneaky and twisted, never attacking head-on. Soda, on hands and knees, dug at the earth in the loneliest corner of the backyard, and only when he looked up and all around him, did he almost remember where he was.

His hands were caked with a dirt that'd recently been turned from Oklahoma dust to jungle-like clay. The storms of October had seen to that. And Soda roughly dragged three fingers down the left side of his face, a defiant smearing of war paint from highest cheekbone to strongest jaw.

Who might see him now? Nobody who could ever understand, and so he crouched lower and lower still, until he ended on his back, all of him spread open and apart on top of the worn grass that had once tickled the feet of three very wild and little boys.

Now those spiky green blades gnawed and nipped his skin where his shirt rode up, and a tiger moon looked down and asked him just where those boys had gone.

"I'm sorry," was the soldier's whisper, and he wasn't sure if his voice cracked on fear or pain or truth. Then again, maybe it was merely the sedation. But it didn't matter, because now Soda was puzzled at why Darry's face just happened to be hanging upside down above him, with that all too familiar look of half judgment, half concern set deep inside eyes that fought their age, etching lines across a rugged forehead.

"Soda? You hurt?" His brother's baritone voice shot above them, and Soda watched it clear over Tulsa, a comet ricocheting among the stars that hung as sharp as tiger's teeth, then showered back down to earth, their falling notes looping 'round and 'round, over and over, wrapping the two of them so tightly together that Soda had to hold his breath and his eyes closed against the stranglehold.

It was when Darry's panic began to ooze outside his words, "C'mon man, how much you take huh?", that Soda could feel the hand which tried to rouse him, impatient fingers roughly tapping against a brother's stained cheek.

A slam of a car door between the sleeping houses had signaled the pack of neighborhood dogs to howl out disturbed, calling each other's bluff.

The unmistakable pounding of Pony's unlaced shoes were sharp and swift, always like a fire on his heels. "Darry, d'ya find him?"

"Why can't a man lay down for a lil while and enjoy his backyard, huh?" But Soda wasn't sure if his words didn't come out just a tad scrambled when he said them.

"Cause this ain't our home no more. Hasn't been for a long time, you know that." It was Darry's voice again, this time gentler, with a kind of sorrow aimed straight at Pony. Seemed those two shared everything nowadays. "Pony, you got his left? Lift on three..one, two.."

Soda felt himself being pulled up, jostled and jerked between oldest and youngest, but his bare feet did little to help their situation, just ten naked toes dragging through somebody else's pink perennials. He was nowhere a part of his brothers' conversation and yet, he was the very center of it, the gravity that held it all together, and finally on their quick decision that deemed him incapable, he was sent flopping over a sturdy shoulder.

Where his body draped his brother's, he could feel the vibration of Darry's subtle grunting as he now walked for the both of them, and Soda remembered how, once upon a war, the injured had hung across his own body, the body that had never given out on him, their survival depending solely on the strong young private. Or was it scared young boy?

Now here he was a grown man, confused and upside down and by this position convinced he'd surely been shot, wondering where the bullets had entered and why they didn't sting. He thought about holding onto the back of his brother's belt for a minute, for a little more support, but instead his hands just hung there lifeless, and below he noticed how solid the ground held for Darry when he was the one who walked it.

The couple that stood on the porch of the little white house on North St. Louis watched with a kind of pity as the Curtis brothers, their dangling trespasser in tow, crossed the property for their cars that were left running, waiting to take them to their rightful places. And of the three, only Soda could hear the haunting wails of the beloved ghosts they were about to leave behind.

"Hey, thanks Bill," Pony spoke for them all, "we sure do appreciate it." He could've said more; how grateful they were that the current owner, a kind old man, had recognized the lost soul who used to live here as a boy, knew that it was Soda Curtis who was acting strangely out beside the woodshed, and who thankfully thought to call his brother instead of the police. But all of that was understood, all of their gratitude right there in the apologetic wave from the good doctor, who was by now used to emergencies that stole his sleep.

And from the tired porch that had so long ago been theirs, the old and stoic colonel, his arthritic back forgotten, stood tall in his bathrobe and saluted the fallen soldier when they passed, the one who hung limp and couldn't even see.

xXx

Darry shook his glass, swirling the amber liquid before he took a sip of the Jack and Coke, hoping the caffeine would revive his heavy eyes, while knowing the whiskey would dial down his amplified adrenaline. "So, what'd she say?" his voice came out rough and gravelly, working to clear the burn in his throat. He wondered if there was any Coke in his drink at all. Pony always poured too heavy.

"She was upset, obviously. Told us not to bring him back tonight, not with the boys there sleepin'." Pony had just hung up from his sister-in-law. After always seeming to draw the proverbial short straw, he'd been the one who had to call Patty in the dead of night, alerting her to the fact that Soda's side of the bed was indeed cold and empty, and right this very minute her husband happened to be slumped beneath the abused dart board in Pony's half-finished basement, knocked unconscious from a pharmaceutical cocktail of God knows what.

"Figured as much, I'll hang out here too, till he comes off it." Darry settled back into their daddy's old chair that had somehow made its way across town into one of the fancier West side houses. He crossed his arms and pulled his baseball hat down a little further over his eyes, which meant he wasn't budging anytime soon.

Pony nodded his head. There was no sense in arguing with Darry when he knew there'd be no way to convince him to go on home and get some sleep. His oldest brother had always been stubborn. Come to think of it though, so was he.

Pony squeezed his beer cap between two fingers until it was folded metal and fit down the mouth of his empty bottle of Coors. "You happen to see the news today?" It was a dumb question. Of course Darry had seen it. And so had Soda. And Steve. And Two-Bit and anyone who cared enough about Soda to follow the hushed investigation.

"Yup. They cut it off at '67. S'all I give a shit about." Darry's bull-like defensiveness often allowed for a kind of tunnel vision that had him swiftly castrating every other thing that didn't apply to his own brood.

But Pony was the one who could see how everything applied to everything and bled across lines and got into the fabric of all that came too close. Sure, Soda'd escaped the Pentagon interrogations by only a couple months with his arrival to the war, but Tiger Force being called into question all these years later was enough to trigger a landslide in Soda of apocalyptic proportions.

Pony wasn't surprised that he and his brothers were sitting here now in the darkest hour of the morning, hiding in this bunker alongside Soda who must've been trying desperately to slide all those little pins back into their grenades. It was no wonder at all he'd bypassed Pony and conned a careless dentist willing to prescribe all that good candy for a phantom tooth pain.

xXx

"...come and get me? ...yeah Pony's...I'll wait outside."

Soda's sluggish voice laced in and out of Darry's dream until it pulled him up by tugging strings and he suddenly realized that he'd fallen asleep. More importantly, Soda was now awake and using the phone.

"Soda, just sleep it off man, you can go home later."

At Darry's first word, Pony came to immediately, jerking up from the couch, his body trained Pavlovian style to respond to the commanding tones of the brother that woke him every morning for years. His voice never hinted at his exhaustion, but his eyes would always give him away. "Darry's right Soda, Patty knows you're here, that you're safe. She said she wants you to stay with me."

But Soda wasn't listening. He was heading straight for the bathroom to relieve himself, and to find the fingerprints of mud on his face when he noticed his mirrored reflection. The faucet drowned out his brothers who were still trying to convince him not to go home, while his hands of cold water splashed his face clean.

He didn't bother with the hand towel, couldn't bear to soil anything else, and he walked out of the bathroom and started looking everywhere for his shoes. He didn't know how he'd ended up at Pony's and he had no intention of finding out. That was a story those two could rehash over and over, but he didn't want any part of it. "Thanks for lettin' me crash here Pony. Ya'll seen my shoes?"

Pony and Darry exchanged a defeated look. No point in forcing him to stay, and besides, it sounded like Patty was willing to come get him. This was a Grip weekend, and Darry cringed at the thought of all three boys waking up to see their father this way, his body and words dragging, his eyes set behind a rolling toxic fog. But at least he was better than several hours ago.

"You didn't wear shoes tonight, bud. Wanna borrow mine?" Pony hoped he wasn't coming across as condescending, and he pointed to his tennis shoes he'd slipped out of earlier, still untied, muddied from the old backyard.

Soda looked at both of them while his hands fumbled to fix his belt. He swayed when he smiled, then corrected his footing. He licked away the dry of his cracked lips slowly. "Thanks man. Both of y'all. For everything." And then with the quick shot of a finger gun and his trademark side-eye that somehow still managed its devilish sparkle, he added, "Always a good time."

He had no idea if he'd had fun or not, but he decided to be polite, and he didn't hesitate to accept the offer of the shoes and slid easily into them as if they were meant for his feet as much as they were for Ponyboy's.

"Ya'll don't need to walk me. I'm good. I'll see myself out."

But they followed him down the driveway anyway, just in time to see the first crack of dawn blow out the last star of night, then two headlights crawling up the street. Pony's eyes were burning, trying to adjust against the invasive high beams. She thoughtfully cut them off when she got close enough, not wanting to wake anybody with her brights hitting a bedroom window. She knew the score.

Soda didn't even say goodbye when he immediately stumbled for his ride, but neither brother could've answered him anyway. They'd been stunned by the unexpected car that pulled right in front of them. And they somehow remembered their manners and respectfully greeted Gloria who came climbing out of the driver's side.

Always a straight shooter, Glory casually strolled around the car to her ex-in-laws and assured them she'd take care of their brother until he'd safely slept it off. And the look she gave them let them know this wasn't their first rodeo. Far from it.

There was no mistaking all that flowed between them and probably always would- the good, the bad and most definitely the ugly. She thought to buckle his seat belt before she closed his door. While she was bent across him, they saw Soda's hand slink up the back of Glory's leg, fingers snaking their way under loose pajama shorts, and giving her ass a couple of the gentlest pats. The familiarity and comfort level of their movements were more telling than any confession under oath.

Once the tail lights disappeared, Pony looked back to make sure Caroline wasn't awake, hadn't caught the apparent damning of Soda's marriage that they'd witnessed from their own front yard. And he was starting to wonder if he and Darry had been accomplices, essentially having just shoved Patty's husband into the car of the Other Woman. His stomach flipped with nerves before settling into the steely resolve of a protective little brother.

They looked out at the sleepy suburban street and tried to piece it all together. His brothers were used to standing inside all the little earthquakes that Soda left behind him. Even in childhood, he'd always been one of those people that changed the landscape by simply passing through it.

"Not a word of this," Pony breathed like some warning on the wind, but didn't need to.

If anything, Darry knew all too well how to be discreet. His steady hands slid into his pockets. "Not..one..word."

And so they silently accepted the duty of keeping their brother's secret. Because Gloria wasn't what worried them. Not even close.

Somebody poked a sleeping tiger, and the war inside him that Soda had worked so hard to fight, had come stealing back around. What was there to do now but shake their heads and wait for his fall? Nothing to do but bend and brace against the quietest devastation. And they knew a little already of how bad this was gonna hurt.

**A/N:** Outsiders by SE Hinton

_It's been awhile... I'm in a weird relationship with my writing right now, and it shows. I hope to write innocence soon, or a "younger" Curtis piece maybe, or at least return to first person, where I know I belong. Anyway, thank you so much for reading :) _


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